On Tuesday, April 29, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Athletics Department hosted the 11th annual ESSLYs, the annual award show designed to celebrate the achievements of UWL student-athletes in school, in sport and in life.
Because many student-athletes get caught up in schoolwork, workouts, practices and competitions, the ESSLYs are an opportunity for everyone involved with UWL Athletics to be recognized for their achievements.
“We all get busy and don’t recognize the work our student athletes put in often enough. The ESSLYs give you the opportunity to see the incredible athletes here at UWL, and everything they’re doing,” said Volleyball Head Coach Deb Sazama.
At the ESSLYS, UWL student-athletes in each university-sponsored athletic discipline are recognized for their accomplishments, by recognition of team captains, community service hours, scholar athletes and 4.00 GPA students. All-Americans, academic All-Americans, four-year participants, as well as individual and team national champions are recognized as well
Individual athlete awards are also recognized during the event. Such awards include the Male and Female Athlete of the Year, Student of the Year, Male and Female Newcomer of the Year, Comeback Athlete of the Year, The Eagle Award and the Outstanding Career Award.
A faculty member is also recognized as Faculty of the Year.
In addition to the individual awards, there are two team awards given out during the ceremony. One of these awards is given to the team with the highest cumulative grade point average (GPA) and the other is Team of the Year, for the team with the most success within the past year.
This year, the team with the highest cumulative GPA was the Women’s Cross Country team and the Faculty of the Year award was given to Biology Professor, Jennifer Miskowski.
The UWL Athletics Department has three pillars. The department aims for its student-athletes to excel in school, in sport and in life.
For the school pillar, the UWL Athletic Department handed out the Student award. The award is given to the student-athletes who performed the best in the classroom, with all three athletes who received the award having earned a 4.0 GPA.
This year’s winners were Justine Bastyr of Volleyball, Reilly Eiynck of Women’s Swim & Dive and Addie Pauling of Soccer.
Bastyr is currently pursuing her CPA license and is a double major in accounting and finance. Eiynck will be attending graduate school at Yale on a full scholarship to pursue a PhD. Pauling is currently working at an internship in Colorado.
To Sazama, the awards represent an opportunity to motivate her squad. “Historically, our program hasn’t been in that position, lifting the trophy. I hope seeing others do it makes my team say, ‘that can and should be us.’”
Over the past year, UWL Athletics has seen an unprecedented number of teams compete and find success on a national level, a feat many Division III schools could only dream of.
The ESSLYs celebrated Men’s Track and Field winning a national title in its 2024 Outdoor season, Men’s Cross Country getting their revenge and winning a national championship during their 2024 season, Gymnastics winning an National College Gymnastics Association (NCGA) national title in March of 2025 and Men’s Track & Field winning an Indoor National Championship title in March of 2025.
During the past year, UWL Athletic have also secured nine Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) championships. One of the teams to take home a WIAC title over the past year was Wrestling, who came home with the Upset of the Year award after winning a regional title and sending nine of ten weight classes to the national meet.
“What happens here doesn’t happen anywhere else,” said Head Coach of UWL Wrestling Dave Malecek.
Across all National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) schools, sports and divisions, UWL has the 11th-most team national championships in the nation with 51 national titles.
On March 22, the UWL Gymnastics team captured the program’s 18th NCGA title and UWL’s 79th overall national title, about a week after the UWL Men’s Track & Field team concluded its 2025 Indoor season with winning a national championship, the 21st in program history.
“Other schools would throw a ticker-tape parade if they won just one national championship, but we had cake and coffee for our 78th and 79th,” said Malecek.
While not every team can win a national championship every year, there were many programs that stood out. Men’s and Women’s Basketball both had record-breaking seasons, each making the national tournament.
Under Head Coach J.T. Gritzmacher, the Men’s Basketball team completed the winningest season in program history. The team won 22 regular-season games and three in the postseason before being eliminated by Missouri’s Washington University.
For the Women’s Basketball team, this year wasn’t just about accomplishments, but rather pushing forward and giving back. The team was faced with a setback early in the year, with the tragic loss of UWL Women’s Basketball Head Coach Moran Lonning’s son, Charlie Lonning Weber.
The Women’s Basketball team and the entire UWL community surrounded Lonning and her family with thoughts, prayers and love. Over a thousand people showed up in November to stand in support with the team when they hosted Bubba’s Youth Night in memoriam of their ‘Forever Sixth Man’.
In Webber’s honor, Athletic Director Kim Blum’s True Grit Award was renamed to The Charlie Award and given to the Women’s Basketball team.
Following the Charlie Award, Blum highlighted each team’s service efforts within the La Crosse community, emphasizing the perpetual effort from UWL student-athletes on every team to step up and support a good cause.
During their off-season, each athletic discipline sponsored by the UWL Athletic Department participates in community service efforts, whether on-campus or anywhere in La Crosse County.
UWL Football Head Coach Matt Janus chimed in on Blum’s remarks. “To see and to hear about the ways our UWL student-athletes were able to help the La Crosse community and to be a part of that community as well is something special. It’s not just about sports for our teams. It’s using sports to provide a platform to provide an experience,” said Janus.
Each year, the UWL Athletic department recognizes an athlete who has overcome one or more significant obstacles or injuries to return to competing at a high level. This year’s winner of the Comeback of the Year award is UWL Gymnastics’ very own, Sara Beck.
Beck lost a year of her college career to multiple injuries in her leg, but persevered and scored a 9.750 on the uneven bars to place third at the NCGA National Championships and help UWL bring home its first NCGA title since 2016.
For the third pillar, the department created The Life Award. The Life Award encapsulates being successful in all areas of student-athlete life and was awarded to two athletes. Recipients of the 2025 Life Award are Men’s Swim and Dive’s Connor Cleveland and Women’s Cross Country’s Sierra Rabe.
Each year, thousands of athletes arrive onto new college campuses to compete in various sports. Whether it is through being a transfer or first-year student-athlete, the Newcomer Award recognizes individuals who have been successful in their first year at UWL and have excelled in their athletic discipline.
The 2025 Newcomer Award winners are Men’s Tennis’ Ty Schneider and Women’s Swim and Dive’s Zoey Rank. This past season, Schneider went 15-7 in singles and 16-5 in doubles, tied for second in overall victories on the team. Rank was victorious in the 200-meter individual medley at the WIAC Championships and won the WIAC’s Newcomer of the Year Award.
While many athletes have done great things during their time competing at UWL and post-graduation, the 2025 Career Award recognizes four UWL Athletes for their accomplishments during their time at UWL. The 2025 Career Award was given to Soccer’s Ellie Arndt, Baseball’s Mac Born, Softball’s Kyra Lard and Men’s Track and Field’s Sam Blaskowski.
During her time at UWL, Arndt has earned All-Region and All-American honors three times, appearing in 90 games and starting 84 of them.
As Baseball’s captain, Born is a four-time All-WIAC selection and is a three-time selection to D3Baseball.com’s All-America Second Team and ABCA All-Region Team.
Lard suited up 153 games for the Eagles throughout her career, with a .421 batting average over her career and earning an All-WIAC selection three times.
Throughout his career at UWL, Blaskowski has proven himself as one of the greatest sprinters in Division III history, holding records in the 60m, 100m and 200m. Blaskowski has won 11 national titles and has earned 20 DIII All-American honors in his career. In 2024, Blaskowski competed in the Team USA Track and Field Olympic Trials where he ran 10.17 in the 100m semi-final.
For the last awards of the night, the UWL Athletics Department handed out the Male and Female Athlete of the Year Awards. The awards exemplify the best student-athletes in each gender, regardless of discipline.
For the men, Football’s Jack Studer and Track and Field/Cross Country’s Grant Matthai received the award. For the women, Track and Field’s Lauren Jarrett and Basketball’s Lauryn Milne took home the award.
Studer was a semi-finalist for The Gagliardi Trophy, Division III football’s highest honor. Studer is UWL’s all-time leading receiver in catches and touchdowns and received an invitation to the Green Bay Packers’ 2025 Rookie Minicamp.
Matthai helped lead both Men’s Cross Country and Track and Field to National Championships, placing third at the National Cross-Country Championships in November and first in the 5k at the NCAA Track and Field National Championships in March.
Jarrett holds the NCAA Division III record indoors for the 60m and outdoors in the 100m dash. Jarrett is the only sprinter in UWL history to take home indoor titles in the 60m and 200m dash at the Indoor Championships and has won six national titles.
Milne is a 2025 All-WIAC First Team selection and is one of three players in UWL history to score over 1,200 career points and record more than 500 rebounds. Milne suited up for the Eagles nearly one hundred times in her career, averaging 11.2 points and 4.7 assists per game.
The 2025 ESSLYs recognized all the aforementioned individuals and teams for their unparalleled accomplishments this past year, encapsulating the work put in by UWL student-athletes, coaching staff, athletic trainers, and volunteers.
